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Minutes, 22–23 January 1833

Source Note

Minutes, , OH, 22–23 Jan. 1833. Featured version copied [ca. 23 Jan. 1833] in Minute Book 1, pp. 6–8; handwriting of and ; CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for Minute Book 1.

Historical Introduction

According to the index of Minute Book 1, a of met in , Ohio, on 22–23 January 1833 “to organize the .” A 27–28 December 1832 revelation had commanded the “first labourers” of the church to “assembl yourselves together, and organize yourselves, and prepare yourselves, and sanc[t]ify yourselves.” The revelation commanded these “labourers” to “clean your hands, and your feet, before me” so that they could be “clean, from the blood of this, wicked generation” and then to establish a school where they could be instructed in both secular and spiritual matters—a school that JS called a “school for the Prophets.” Schools of the prophets, which trained ministerial candidates prior to the assumption of their duties as clergymen, had been part of the colonial and early American religious landscape since the arrival of the Puritans in the 1630s. Institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Dartmouth were generally understood to be “schools of the prophets” in that one of their primary functions was to train a qualified clergy. Private schools of the prophets emerged in the 1740s as part of the reform spirit associated with the First Great Awakening and continued into the early nineteenth century.
According to the 27–28 December 1832 revelation, the School of the Prophets was necessary for the men of the school to “be prepared, in all things when I shall send you again, to magnify the calling, whereunto I have called you, and the mission with which, I have commissioned you.” It was also essential so that the men could be better qualified “to go forth among the , for the last time.” In accordance with these instructions, twelve high priests, two , and other members of the church, including women, gathered on 22 January 1833 in an upstairs room of ’s , where JS was living. The conference continued the next day, though it is likely, given the “washing hands faces & feet” that took place on the second day, that only the men listed at the beginning of the minutes were present on that day.
Although the index to Minute Book 1 states that the purpose of the conference was to organize the school, the minutes do not provide details about any kind of formal establishment. Instead, the minutes indicate that the conference was mainly concerned with the sanctification required by the 27–28 December 1832 revelation—perhaps as a necessary precursor to any actual teaching or learning. The participants present on the first day experienced the gifts of speaking in and interpreting tongues. Both the Bible and the Book of Mormon refer to speaking in tongues as one of the manifestations of God’s Spirit. A March 1831 revelation also states that “it is given to some to speak with tongues & to another it is given the interpretation of tongues.” The practice, however, was not common in other religious denominations in the at the time, although it was sometimes exhibited at slave revivals in the early nineteenth century and was occasionally manifested in the Shaker community. Although church members had experienced this gift in 1830 and 1831 before JS’s arrival, it largely disappeared in after a June 1831 conference at which JS “identified some of the ecstatic manifestations” of church members as “ungodly.” However, at a meeting in November 1832, as a later history of JS explains, “Brother , and spoke in Tongues, which was the first time I had heard this Gift among the brethren, others also spoke, and I received the Gift myself.” Just two months later, the gift resurfaced in this 22–23 January 1833 meeting. According to the later history, JS “rejoiced . . . at the return of these long absent blessings to the assembly of the Saints.”
On the second day of the conference, after another episode of speaking in tongues, JS washed the hands, faces, and feet of those present, following the biblical precedent found in John 13:4–17. Such a ceremony was not unknown at the time. The practice came to colonial America with radical Reformation groups, such as Mennonites and the Church of the Brethren, in the 1600s and 1700s. Once in America, other groups, including some Baptists, adopted the practice, viewing the ritual as an act of humility. Reformed Baptists following also may have instituted something similar in meetings held in the vicinity of in the late 1820s. In 1832, as part of his Bible revision, JS revised the John 13 account of Jesus washing the apostles’ feet to state that the ceremony “was the costom of the Jews under their law: wherefore, Jesus done this that the law might be fulfilled.” , who was present at the January 1833 conference, explained that the ceremony served as “a testimony” that the “garments” of those so washed “were clean from the blood of this generation.” According to , another conference participant, the washing of the feet was the defining ceremony in the establishment of the School of the Prophets. “The school was organized,” he recorded in his journal, “by assembling together and the washing of the deciples feet.”
acted as clerk of the conference and recorded minutes of the meeting. He and later copied the minutes into Minute Book 1.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Minute Book 1, Index, [1].

  2. [2]

    Revelation, 27–28 Dec. 1832 [D&C 88:74–75]; Letter to William W. Phelps, 11 Jan. 1833.

  3. [3]

    Darowski, “Schools of the Prophets,” 1–13.

    Darowski, Joseph F. “Schools of the Prophets: An Early American Tradition.” Mormon Historical Studies 9 (Spring 2008): 1–13.

  4. [4]

    Revelation, 27–28 Dec. 1832 [D&C 88:80, 84].

  5. [5]

    Revelation, ca. 8 Mar. 1831–A [D&C 46:24–25].

  6. [6]

    Stein, Shaker Experience in America, 105, 167, 171–172; see also Staker, Hearken, O Ye People, 20–23.

    Stein, Stephen J. The Shaker Experience in America: A History of the United Society of Believers. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992.

    Staker, Mark L. Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2009.

  7. [7]

    Staker, Hearken, O Ye People, 175.

    Staker, Mark L. Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2009.

  8. [8]

    JS History, vol. A-1, addenda, 2nA; see also Historian’s Office, Brigham Young History Drafts, 4; and Esplin, “Emergence of Brigham Young,” 92–94.

    Historian’s Office. Brigham Young History Drafts, 1856–1858. CHL. CR 100 475, box 1, fd. 5.

    Esplin, Ronald K. “The Emergence of Brigham Young and the Twelve to Mormon Leadership, 1830–1841.” PhD diss., Brigham Young University, 1981. Also available as The Emergence of Brigham Young and the Twelve to Mormon Leadership, 1830–1841, Dissertations in Latter-day Saint History (Provo, UT: Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History; BYU Studies, 2006).

  9. [9]

    JS History, vol. A-1, 270.

  10. [10]

    “Footwashing,” in Mennonite Encyclopedia, 347; Grow, “‘Clean from the Blood of This Generation,’” 132.

    The Mennonite Encyclopedia. Vol. 2, D–H. Scottsdale, PA: Mennonite Publishing House, 1956.

    Grow, Matthew J. “‘Clean from the Blood of This Generation’: The Washing of Feet and the Latter-day Saints.” In Archive of Restoration Culture Summer Fellows’ Papers, 2000– 2002, edited by Richard Lyman Bushman, 131–138. Provo, UT : Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History, 2005.

  11. [11]

    Reuben Harmon, a longtime resident of Kirtland, stated in 1884 that he had witnessed “the washing of feet” when “Mr. [Sidney] Rigdon was preaching in Mentor.” It is unclear from the statement whether the ceremony occurred in Rigdon’s Mentor church, or whether it happened in a reformed Baptist congregation on Isaac Morley’s farm in Kirtland. (Kelley and Braden, Public Discussion of the Issues, 393.)

    Kelley, E. L., and Clark Braden. Public Discussion of the Issues between the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the Church of Christ (Disciples), Held in Kirtland, Ohio. . . . St. Louis: Clark Braden, 1884.

  12. [12]

    New Testament Revision 2, p. 117 (second numbering) [Joseph Smith Translation, John 13:10]; see also Faulring et al., Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible, 69.

    Faulring, Scott H., Kent P. Jackson, and Robert J. Matthews, eds. Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2004.

  13. [13]

    Samuel Smith, Diary, 10 Dec. 1832.

    Smith, Samuel. Diary, Feb. 1832–May 1833. CHL. MS 4213.

  14. [14]

    Coltrin, Diary and Notebook, 24 Jan. 1833.

    Coltrin, Zebedee. Diary and Notebook, 1832–1833. Zebedee Coltrin, Diaries, 1832–1834. CHL. MS 1443, fd. 2.

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation. *Minutes, 22–23 January 1833 Minute Book 1 History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834] “History of Joseph Smith”

Page 8

fixed determination to be with him in suff[er]ing or in rejoicing, in life or in death and to be continually on his right hand in which thing he was accepted, The President said after he had of the , as I have done so do ye wash ye therefee [therefore] one anothers feet pronouncing at the same time through the power of the Holy Ghost that the Elders were all clean from the blood of this generation but that those who among them who should sin wilfully after they were thus cleansed and up unto eternal life should be given over unto the buffettings of Satan until the day of redemption Having continued all day in fasting & prayer before the Lord at the close they partook of the which was blessed by the president in the name of the Lord all eat and drank and were filled then sang an hymn and went out—
Clk— [p. 8]
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Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Minutes, 22–23 January 1833
ID #
6585
Total Pages
3
Print Volume Location
JSP, D2:378–382
Handwriting on This Page
  • Frederick G. Williams

Footnotes

  1. [8]

    See John 13:14.

  2. [9]

    Coltrin stated that JS made this pronouncement after washing each individual’s feet. (Coltrin, Diary and Notebook, 24 Jan. 1833.)

    Coltrin, Zebedee. Diary and Notebook, 1832–1833. Zebedee Coltrin, Diaries, 1832–1834. CHL. MS 1443, fd. 2.

  3. [10]

    At an October 1831 conference in Orange, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, JS stated that “the order of the High priesthood is that they have power given them to seal up the Saints unto eternal life.” Those so sealed were, according to Rigdon, those who had “give[n] up all for Christ’s sake.” A November 1831 revelation reiterated this, instructing Orson Hyde, Luke Johnson, Lyman Johnson, and William E. McLellin that “of as many as the Father shall bear record to you it shall be given to seal them up unto Eternal life.” (Minutes, 25–26 Oct. 1831; Revelation, 1 Nov. 1831–A [D&C 68:12].)

  4. [11]

    See Matthew 26:30; and Mark 14:26. Coltrin added that “the meeting was dismissed by uplifted hand to the most high in token of the everlasting covenants in which covenant we received each other into fellowship in a determination to share in each others burdens whether in prosperity or adversity.” According to a 3 January 1833 revelation, when entering the School of the Prophets, participants were to lift their hands to heaven and recite: “Art thou a brother, or brethren, I salute you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, in tocen [token] of the everlasting covenant, in which covenant, I receive you to fellowship, in a determination, that is fixed immovable, and unchangable, to be your friend and brother, through the grace of God, in the bonds of Love, to walk in all the commandments, of God, blameless, in thanksgiving for ever, and ever; Amen.” (Coltrin, Diary and Notebook, 24 Jan. 1833; Revelation, 3 Jan. 1833 [D&C 88:132–133].)

    Coltrin, Zebedee. Diary and Notebook, 1832–1833. Zebedee Coltrin, Diaries, 1832–1834. CHL. MS 1443, fd. 2.

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